FC: Run a political web site, go to jail? FEC rules challenged...

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

>From: George Paul-FPG060 <Paul_George-FPG060@email.mot.com>
>To: "'declan@well.com'" <declan@well.com>
>Subject: FEC Says Running Partisan Web Site Counts as Political Contributi
>	on
>Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:27:16 -0500
>X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0)
>
>>From Netsurfer Digest Volume 05, Issue 34 Sunday, October 24, 1999
>The reference may provide grist for the politech mill
>
>FEC Says Running Partisan Web Site Counts as Political Contribution
>A bizarre ruling by the US Federal Election Comission (FEC) says that anyone
>who expresses their political opinion on a Web site which runs on a computer
>worth over $250 may be violating federal election law. The law requires that
>people who spend over $250 donating cash or expressing their political views
>must disclose their identity and register their contact information. The law
>is designed to prevent fraud, which it does reasonably well, but this case
>seems to lead it onto a collision course with the First Amendment. By this
>logic, anyone who waxes political on a computer worth over $1000 will have
>to register as a political action committee. The victim of the ruling
>basically told the FEC to stick it where the sun don't shine and dared them
>to prosecute him. The story also has prompted the introduction of a bill in
>Congress exempting such expressions of political opinions from the reporting
>requirements. 
><http://www.aclu.org/news/1999/n101399b.html>
>
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>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Paul C George           817-245-7126
>WiLL NIU SCM/SST Lead   FPG060@email.mot.com
>Fort Worth, TX
>------------------------------------------------------------------------



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